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What are universities for?

Before Christmas, I blogged on a couple of occasions about the likely effects of a new set of criteria for the distribution for research funding in British universities. The "Research Excellence Framework" (REF) stipulates that "significant additional recognition will be given where researchers build on excellent research to deliver demonstrable benefits to the economy, society, public policy, culture and quality of life. Impacts will be assessed through a case-study approach that will be tested in a pilot exercise."

Many academics working in the humanities were quick to point out the likely effects on their fields of an economic growth-oriented model of academic funding, in which "impact" is a key criterion. In a petition submitted to No 10, leading researchers urged

the reversal of the Research Councils and HEFCE policy to direct funds to projects whose outcomes are determined to have a significant "impact". The arts and humanities do have such an impact, but it is typically difficult if not impossible to judge this in the short term. Academic excellence is the best predictor of impact in the longer term, and it is on academic excellence alone that research should be judged. "Users" who are not academic experts are not fit to judge the academic excellence of research any more than employers are fit to mark student essays. The UK is renowned for its creative industries. But the roots of creativity in the intellectual life of the nation need sustained support and evaluations based on short-term impact will lead to less impact in the long term.

A letter from the novelist and critic Gabriel Josipovici published in the latest issue of the TLS suggests that university administrations have already taken the REF to heart, and are setting about restructuring their institutions in its image. I have a particular interest in what Josipovici has to say, as he's writing about my alma mater, the University of Sussex, where he taught for many years. His letter is worth quoting at length:

A document has come into my possession which might be of interest to your readers -- an email, in fact, which the vice-chancellor of the University of Sussex, Michael Farthing, has sent to all undergraduates, explaining to them his plans for "the development of the university". These plans consist of the sacking of over 100 staff and the closing down or reduction of a number of "areas", so that the word "development" is somewhat ironic, but in keeping with the tone of the document, which is couched throughout in the worst bureaucratese. Thus: "Our aim is to continue to invest in successful areas in the university and grow our income where possible."

As one might imagine, this is not good news for those disciplines which have always been seen as at the heart of the humanities side of English universities. "In some areas," the VC says, "there are no opportunities for sustainable growth and we need to make targeted reductions in those areas while continuing to develop our university as a broad and balanced research-intensive institution across the arts and social sciences." It is difficult to see how this last aspiration is to be met when it is followed by this: "In a number of schools we are now seeking financial savings, including engineering and design; English; history, art history and philosophy; informatics; and life sciences." By contrast, predictably: "In academic schools with recent growth and good prospects for the future, we are pressing ahead with our growth and development plans, including the schools of business, management and economics; global studies; and media, film and music" . . .

The question this raises is: Are universities really businesses? And if not, what are they? Are they to become forcing houses for the immediate economic development of the country and nothing else (ie, are business and media studies to replace engineering, English, history and philosophy)? If that is what the country wants, so be it. But we should be clear that it means the end of universities as they have been known in the west since the Middle Ages.

I don't think Josipovici's conclusion is at all apocalyptic. Rather, it seems to me entirely uncontroversial -- we're sleepwalking into uncivilisation.

I'd encourage students and academics to leave further examples of the kind of thing described here in the comment box below.

Hannan Fodder: This week, Daniel Hannan gets his excuses in early

Since Daniel Hannan, a formerly obscure MEP, has emerged as the anointed intellectual of the Brexit elite, The Staggers is charting his ascendancy...

When I started this column, there were some nay-sayers talking Britain down by doubting that I was seriously going to write about Daniel Hannan every week. Surely no one could be that obsessed with the activities of one obscure MEP? And surely no politician could say enough ludicrous things to be worthy of such an obsession?

They were wrong, on both counts. Daniel and I are as one on this: Leave and Remain, working hand in glove to deliver on our shared national mission. There’s a lesson there for my fellow Remoaners, I’m sure.

Anyway. It’s week three, and just as I was worrying what I might write this week, Dan has ridden to the rescue by writing not one but two columns making the same argument – using, indeed, many of the exact same phrases (“not a club, but a protection racket”). Like all the most effective political campaigns, Dan has a message of the week.

First up, on Monday, there was this headline, in the conservative American journal, the Washington Examiner:

“We will get a good deal – because rational self-interest will overcome the Eurocrats’ fury”

The message of the two columns is straightforward: cooler heads will prevail. Britain wants an amicable separation. The EU needs Britain’s military strength and budget contributions, and both sides want to keep the single market intact.

The Con Home piece makes the further argument that it’s only the Eurocrats who want to be hardline about this. National governments – who have to answer to actual electorates – will be more willing to negotiate.

And so, for all the bluster now, Theresa May and Donald Tusk will be skipping through a meadow, arm in arm, before the year is out.

Before we go any further, I have a confession: I found myself nodding along with some of this. Yes, of course it’s in nobody’s interests to create unnecessary enmity between Britain and the continent. Of course no one will want to crash the economy. Of course.

I’ve been told by friends on the centre-right that Hannan has a compelling, faintly hypnotic quality when he speaks and, in retrospect, this brief moment of finding myself half-agreeing with him scares the living shit out of me. So from this point on, I’d like everyone to keep an eye on me in case I start going weird, and to give me a sharp whack round the back of the head if you ever catch me starting a tweet with the word, “Friends-”.

Anyway. Shortly after reading things, reality began to dawn for me in a way it apparently hasn’t for Daniel Hannan, and I began cataloguing the ways in which his argument is stupid.

Problem number one: Remarkably for a man who’s been in the European Parliament for nearly two decades, he’s misunderstood the EU. He notes that “deeper integration can be more like a religious dogma than a political creed”, but entirely misses the reason for this. For many Europeans, especially those from countries which didn’t have as much fun in the Second World War as Britain did, the EU, for all its myriad flaws, is something to which they feel an emotional attachment: not their country, but not something entirely separate from it either.

Consequently, it’s neither a club, nor a “protection racket”: it’s more akin to a family. A rational and sensible Brexit will be difficult for the exact same reasons that so few divorcing couples rationally agree not to bother wasting money on lawyers: because the very act of leaving feels like a betrayal.

Problem number two: even if everyone was to negotiate purely in terms of rational interest, our interests are not the same. The over-riding goal of German policy for decades has been to hold the EU together, even if that creates other problems. (Exhibit A: Greece.) So there’s at least a chance that the German leadership will genuinely see deterring more departures as more important than mutual prosperity or a good relationship with Britain.

And France, whose presidential candidates are lining up to give Britain a kicking, is mysteriously not mentioned anywhere in either of Daniel’s columns, presumably because doing so would undermine his argument.

So – the list of priorities Hannan describes may look rational from a British perspective. Unfortunately, though, the people on the other side of the negotiating table won’t have a British perspective.

Problem number three is this line from the Con Home piece:

“Might it truly be more interested in deterring states from leaving than in promoting the welfare of its peoples? If so, there surely can be no further doubt that we were right to opt out.”

I could go on, about how there’s no reason to think that Daniel’s relatively gentle vision of Brexit is shared by Nigel Farage, UKIP, or a significant number of those who voted Leave. Or about the polls which show that, far from the EU’s response to the referendum pushing more European nations towards the door, support for the union has actually spiked since the referendum – that Britain has become not a beacon of hope but a cautionary tale.

But I’m running out of words, and there’ll be other chances to explore such things. So instead I’m going to end on this:

Hannan’s argument – that only an irrational Europe would not deliver a good Brexit – is remarkably, parodically self-serving. It allows him to believe that, if Brexit goes horribly wrong, well, it must all be the fault of those inflexible Eurocrats, mustn’t it? It can’t possibly be because Brexit was a bad idea in the first place, or because liberal Leavers used nasty, populist ones to achieve their goals.

Read today, there are elements of Hannan’s columns that are compelling, even persuasive. From the perspective of 2020, I fear, they might simply read like one long explanation of why nothing that has happened since will have been his fault.

Jonn Elledge is the editor of the New Statesman's sister site CityMetric. He is on Twitter, far too much, as @JonnElledge.